[HN Gopher] WeChat suspends new user registration for security c...
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WeChat suspends new user registration for security compliance
Author : dyslexit
Score : 163 points
Date : 2021-07-27 14:39 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.reuters.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.reuters.com)
| cunthorpe wrote:
| If you ever tried using WeChat you'll find that signing up was
| already a ludicrous experience. I contacted several other WeChat
| users who tried to vouch for me in South East Asia and none of
| the accounts were good enough for WeChat. Absolute nonsense.
| prasenjit_pro wrote:
| Another new string play started with these. It will impact the
| market huge time.
| throwaway4good wrote:
| "Shares in Tencent plunged 9.0% in Hong Kong on Tuesday amid
| widespread market jitters over Chinese regulatory crackdowns on
| high-growth sectors, including online platforms and, most
| recently, private tutoring. Hong Kong's benchmark Hang Seng Index
| (.HSI) fell 4.2%."
|
| Fascinating how the Chinese authorities seem to be regulating the
| these companies with complete disregard on how the stock market
| might react.
| rsynnott wrote:
| > Fascinating how the Chinese authorities seem to be regulating
| the these companies with complete disregard on how the stock
| market might react.
|
| I mean, that's fairly normal, surely? _Any_ aggressive
| regulatory action is going to upset the stock market; it
| regulatory bodies had to take the stock market's delicate
| feelings into account they might as well shut their doors.
| hklutryhgg wrote:
| There is speculation that China is clamping down on soft tech
| (social apps, ...) to encourage people to work on hard tech
| (hardware, ...).
|
| China's semiconductor company spiked today on the stock market.
| woxko wrote:
| Fascinating that they care more about national security (in
| their own way) than feeding the already fat shareholders as the
| US would do.
| itake wrote:
| who are the share holders? Retail investors? Has China ever
| cared about retail investors?
|
| Or does this regulation lower the price so institutional
| investors get a discount?
| [deleted]
| swuecho wrote:
| In China, retail investor are called 'Jiu Cai ' (Chives).
| Obviously, nobody care.
| starfallg wrote:
| >Fascinating how the Chinese authorities seem to be regulating
| the these companies with complete disregard on how the stock
| market might react.
|
| The stock market reaction is a part of the show. They aren't
| banning things despite it, they are actually flexing to show
| authority (albeit in a crude manner).
| itake wrote:
| yeah, I wonder if they do it b/c:
|
| 1. the og investors cashed out. leaving retail holding the bag.
|
| 2. they buy the stock at a discount
| paganel wrote:
| Don't think the Chinese government cares about purchasing any
| Chinese company's stock at a discount, if the need arises
| they can of course nationalise it almost on the spot.
| [deleted]
| atatatat wrote:
| Chinese government individuals may, especially lower tier
| ones.
| elliekelly wrote:
| I think they do it because information (and control over that
| information) is more valuable to them in the long run than
| whatever economic/financial gains they might sacrifice.
| itake wrote:
| They could of added the regulation at a slower pace instead
| of pulling the plug on everyone.
| joyeuse6701 wrote:
| We (the west) may see this as shocking, but I believe this
| isn't equivalent to the U.S. gov't doing something that would
| crash the NYSE or NASDAQ. If the Chinese gov't did something
| that undermined real estate value, where most Chinese citizen's
| savings are parked, that would be more comparable.
| paganel wrote:
| > with complete disregard on how the stock market might react.
|
| I personally regard this as a positive fact, and I'm generally
| against the policies of the current Chinese authorities. The
| stock market should not be the be-all and end-all of our modern
| society.
| aerosmile wrote:
| Does it make sense to have strong principles and not be
| guided by financial incentives alone? Sure. But would it make
| more sense to have a solid regulatory framework to start
| with, as opposed to being loosey goosey for a very long time
| and then course correcting in a way that evaporates billions
| in value overnight from domestic and foreign investors?
|
| Countries and companies have a lot in common. Consider this
| analogy: would you want to join a company that has an
| excellent business model and is poised for strong growth, but
| the CEO is a nut case and has done several mass layoffs that
| have completely blindsided internal and external people?
|
| I, for one, am happy that China is tripping over itself and
| will give us a bit more room to breathe and figure out our
| own mess, so that when the inevitable takeover of Taiwan and
| all the other shit storms happen in the future, we'll be at
| least a tiny bit more prepared.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| It's not possible to have a solid regulatory framework from
| the beginning. You can't predict the advance of cutting
| edge tech. Sure, you can do it earlier, but never from the
| start.
|
| Also, billions of dollars of value didn't disappear
| overnight. No jobs are or will be lost, and very little
| utility is lost, except being able to sign up for 1-2
| weeks.
|
| I'm not absolutely thrilled by the rise of China either,
| but we gotta stop lying to ourselves. Not every single
| action by the Chinese government is a stupid and reckless
| calamity that will cause untold harm. We're often blind to
| the good and to the utility of these decisions, and on the
| balance a government that's not scared of the stock market
| is going to be more effective assuming they're competent to
| begin with.
| throwaway4good wrote:
| It is worth noting that SMIC, the main Chinese
| semiconductor fab is up considerably on a day where the
| rest of market crashes:
|
| https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/0981.HK?p=0981.HK&.tsrc=f
| in-...
|
| Possibly reflecting China's (new) policy to focus on what
| it considers "hard tech", instead of social media,
| fintech, e-commerce.
| aerosmile wrote:
| > No jobs are or will be lost, and very little utility is
| lost, except being able to sign up for 1-2 weeks.
|
| Contrast that with the quote from the article:
|
| "Shares in Tencent plunged 9.0% in Hong Kong on Tuesday
| amid widespread market jitters over Chinese regulatory
| crackdowns on high-growth sectors, including online
| platforms and, most recently, private tutoring. Hong
| Kong's benchmark Hang Seng Index (.HSI) fell 4.2%."
|
| The stock price may not correlate with short-term
| budgets, but it absolutely has an impact on long-term
| budgets. So what the investors will be asking themselves
| now is: "Is this disruption just a short blip on the
| radar, or did we just witness a long-term change of the
| Big Tech landscape in China?" Getting on the shit list of
| the Chinese government sounds like a long-term problem to
| me.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| Tencent is not a cash starved company, and these stocks
| will recover at least mostly if not fully.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > Contrast that with the quote from the article:
|
| Shortly after the quote you pulled:
|
| >> Beijing-based tech consultant Zhou Zhanggui said
| investors were over-reacting
|
| Zhou Zhanggui is right. Suspension of account creation
| has basically no impact unless it fails to come back in
| August as advertised.
| blueblisters wrote:
| > I, for one, am happy that China is tripping over itself
| and will give us a bit more room to breathe and figure out
| our own mess, so that when the inevitable takeover of
| Taiwan and all the other shit storms happen in the future,
| we'll be at least a tiny bit more prepared.
|
| A China with a stable regulatory regime is probably
| preferable over a China that is prepared to do short-term
| self-harm in return for its long-term strategy objectives.
| This just reinforces that there is no transparency in
| policy-making, and there is no room for capital to act as a
| tempering voice. Moreover, Taiwan's economy is heavily
| linked to China - China is Taiwan's biggest trading
| partner. If China has no regard for domestic or foreign
| capital and industry, it almost certainly doesn't care
| about disrupting Taiwan economically and forcing it to
| submission without firing a bullet.
|
| OT: I see a lot of Chinese experts rationalize recent moves
| by saying it's all foreshadowed in CCP's public policy
| goals and so on. If that was the case, I would expect at
| least domestic investors to have priced-in the impact of
| the recent changes well ahead of time.
| yorwba wrote:
| > I see a lot of Chinese experts rationalize recent moves
| by saying it's all foreshadowed in CCP's public policy
| goals and so on. If that was the case, I would expect at
| least domestic investors to have priced-in the impact of
| the recent changes well ahead of time.
|
| That's assuming domestic investors were paying attention
| to public policy goals (probably not true for many small-
| time speculators) and able to predict which companies
| would run afoul of regulations (hard even for well-
| informed institutional investors). The second draft of
| the new personal information protection law has penalties
| up to 5% of revenue in severe cases
| https://www.cods.org.cn/c/2021-06-24/14270.html (Article
| 65) but once such a fine is issued for the first time
| (assuming this part makes it into the final law) I bet
| the company in question will have its stock price tank,
| even though the _possibility_ of regulatory action is
| public knowledge. The hard part is knowing if and when it
| 'll happen.
| birdyrooster wrote:
| All we can do now is hope the Taiwanese don't ratify their
| constitution to get rid of their claims to mainland China.
| If they can manage to stay the course, the US will remain
| unentangled with Taiwan's fate.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| _The stock market should not be the be-all and end-all of our
| modern society._
|
| And a repressive Communist government should be?
| fighterpilot wrote:
| It's bad because the "stock market" that people focus on are
| typically indices of only the largest companies, such as the
| S&P 500 and Nasdaq. If the concern is around performance of
| these particular indices, it can lead to more policies that
| favor large business at the expense of the small.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| malwarebytess wrote:
| I think that may be part of the point. In matters of state, in
| China, markets react to policy not the other way around. In the
| west markets direct policy through a kind of indirect or
| virtual parliament.
|
| Whether China's approach is wise or not...I don't know.
| elefanten wrote:
| What examples do you have of this "indirect parliament"
| effect?
|
| Yes various interests lobby the government all the time. But
| what are the best/clearest examples of the market tail
| wagging the policy dog?.
| malfist wrote:
| There's a whole host of examples. Pretty much anything that
| asks the government to accept risk or loss of a company but
| doesn't share profits are good examples.
|
| Net neutrality is a great example. Paying telecoms to build
| infrastructure that they don't build and just pocket. The
| case in Ohio recently where their energy company bribed
| officials to give them a 1 billion dollar bail out.
|
| Another is any regulation that's not done for the greater
| good. Like in my state you have to be a licensed bartender
| and have graduated from a bartending school. Guess who
| pushed for that requirement? It wasn't the public.
| curiousgal wrote:
| Insert here any president boasting about the Dow Jones
| hitting a new high while they're in office
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| Good. Regulators shouldn't care about stock prices at all. They
| should always do the right thing and let the market crash if
| necessary.
| xxpor wrote:
| That's absurd that they shouldn't pay ANY attention. You can
| go too far in both directions. The stock price is an indirect
| indicator of the material impact of the regulation.
| [deleted]
| varispeed wrote:
| > on how the stock market might react.
|
| The stock market is just a facade, a theatre, to appear to the
| West that Chinese economy is somewhat legitimate. In reality
| everything is in CPC hands and all these companies only appear
| to be private.
| partsKnown wrote:
| Yep, the Chinese market is not market in the sense people are
| not free to buy and sell based on market influences but party
| demands.
| mc32 wrote:
| Naively, it looks like the CCP sees the influence and heft US
| tech exercises on the US population and world at large.
|
| The CCP will forgo economic might (in this sector) for social
| stability and control every time. They do not want these titans
| to have more power or influence than they have so they rein
| them in and let them know who holds the straps.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| I don't think this is so naive. Jack Ma, for example,
| disappeared last year shortly after a speech where he called
| the finance regulators incompetent and tried to use his
| fortune to bypass them. What probably scared the Chinese
| government is that he got close to getting away with it. If I
| recall correctly, that was the flash point for the Chinese
| Big Tech crackdown.
| refenestrator wrote:
| Worth noting that ANT financial had major risk and
| accounting shenanigans and regulators were probably in the
| right to block the IPO until they were sorted out better.
| systemvoltage wrote:
| You have it backwards. Jack Ma was scared and emerged in a
| video tape out of nowhere. Why would CCP be scared? That
| doesn't make any sense.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| He didn't seem scared to me, and the "video tape out of
| nowhere" was a speech at the Bund Financial Summit in
| Shanghai : https://interconnected.blog/jack-ma-bund-
| finance-summit-spee...
|
| Why would one of the richest men in China openly defying
| the most basic financial regulations, and then trying to
| strong-arm the regulators by IPOing as fast as possible
| before regulations could be finalized, thus making them
| hurt a lot more people, and almost getting away with it,
| scare the CCP? I don't know, you ask me. I have no idea
| how an authoritarian government could be threatened by
| one of the most powerful people in their society openly
| calling them incompetent, defying them, and trying to
| make laws ineffective. None at all.
| jeswin wrote:
| One scenario would have been Jack Ma (along with family,
| of course) being outside China wile making the statement.
| Given his reach and popularity, that would have been a
| serious blow to CCP PR. He'd lose most of his billions,
| but this risk existed.
|
| Most regimes and communist systems are paranoid. They'll
| make sure there wouldn't be another Jack Ma.
| justicezyx wrote:
| > Jack Ma, for example, disappeared last year shortly after
| a speech where he called the finance regulators incompetent
| and tried to use his fortune to bypass them.
|
| MSM tried to paint such picture.
|
| Mr. Ma put that show, because of he knows that the
| regulators are coming to ANT IPO. And he disappeared
| because a lot of people are going to be very angry after
| Mr. Ma failed to push the IPO through. Think a bit, who are
| those angry men. I guarantee you'll never find the names of
| these people, thinking them like political power that
| collectively can rival the infamous Mr. Xi.
|
| CCP is bully.
|
| But when it's bullying the one who romanticize 996 [1],
| hell, yeah, I enjoy that Mr. Ma gets bullied...
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/996_working_hour_system
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| This doesn't make sense to me.
|
| Centralized power is good (if that's what you want, and it
| seems like that's the MO of the CCP).
|
| They just need to control it.
|
| They should want Tencent to take over the world - with them
| in complete control of Tencent (which they basically already
| are).
|
| Why should the CCP afraid of Tencent getting big instead of
| trying everything they can to make Tencent and ByteDance etc
| bigger?
| OminousWeapons wrote:
| If they get too big and powerful they can theoretically
| pose a threat to Xi Jinping's hold on power. These
| crackdowns and the actions against Jack Ma are designed to
| show that the state will always be in control.
| yorwba wrote:
| Right now, Tencent makes a lot of money selling data on
| Chinese citizens to the highest bidder for the purpose of
| ad targeting. The government isn't going to do "everything
| they can" to make Tencent bigger if "everything" includes
| allowing anyone with deep enough pockets to put their
| population under surveillance. Hence the network security
| review.
| ypzhang2 wrote:
| Two flaws would be to assume A) the ccp is a monolithic
| entity And B) they have complete control over tencent et
| al. Some control isn't complete control.
|
| Factions exist in the ccp and having outside concentrations
| of power can lead to dangerous fragmentation that can also
| affect the internal politics of the ccp
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| The bigger threat is apps with massive vertical integration
| that are popular in Asia. The West hasn't gone down that
| rabbit hole yet.
| vehemenz wrote:
| The problem is that the CCP has nothing to replace this
| cultural vacuum with. They want to legislate a return to
| "old" (post 1949) values by banning foreign tutors,
| suppressing dissent on WeChat and Weibo, and doing generally
| authoritarian shit to encourage nationalism. Meanwhile,
| young, educated people almost exclusively consume the
| cultural products of the West, Korea, and Japan. And they
| find the North Korean style propaganda embarrassing. The
| disconnect really cannot be understated.
| georgeecollins wrote:
| >> The problem is that the CCP has nothing to replace this
| cultural vacuum with.
|
| I am no expert, but I disagree and I think this is the kind
| of thinking that has failed the west for the last thirty
| years. I think the idea started with the fall of the Soviet
| Union. That culture and ideology was bankrupt. So a lot of
| western people thought that when there was a free exchange
| of ideas with China, the Chinese would eventually reject
| the CCP.
|
| My experience of people in China-- admittedly a long time
| ago-- was they are generally very patriotic or
| nationalistic, like Americans. They appreciate the CCP and
| what it has accomplished. They have a strong domestic arts
| industry making movies, books, games. Sure lots of people
| disagree with the party, but that doesn't that they want a
| western liberal democracy. So lots of people will speak in
| favor of a benevolent elite and against populism or what
| they see as western chaos or oppression. When people are
| against the government, they aren't wishing for a different
| government system, just less corrupt or more benevolent
| authoritarians.
|
| Anyway, that is the way I am thinking about these days. But
| I could be very wrong and I would love to hear from people
| who are from or spend time in China.
| radmuzom wrote:
| One your comment on a "strong domestic arts industry", I
| would recommend this video.
|
| "The Curious Story of China's Indie Gaming Scene"
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VrTZ_UeUxM
| georgeecollins wrote:
| Thanks, that was interesting.
| tablespoon wrote:
| I think you're broadly correct. With regard to China, a
| lot of people's understanding is driven in large part by
| wishful thinking, which is a serious weakness and
| vulnerability.
|
| > Sure lots of people disagree with the party, but that
| doesn't that they want a western liberal democracy. So
| lots of people will speak in favor of a benevolent elite
| and against populism or what they see as western chaos or
| oppression. When people are against the government, they
| aren't wishing for a different government system, just
| less corrupt or more benevolent authoritarians.
|
| I think it's important to note those views are in large
| part created an reinforced a deliberate propaganda
| program. For instance, I believe one of the ideas the
| Chinese government pushes is the Chinese people "aren't
| ready" for democracy (while carefully preventing anything
| that could make them ready). When educated Chinese people
| were better exposed to ideas about liberal democracy,
| they were very clear that they wanted it (e.g. 80s
| leading up to Tiananmen Square, the Liberal Studies
| curriculum in Hong Kong), but the government has learned
| from those episodes and has taken action to get the
| ideological results it desires.
| [deleted]
| em500 wrote:
| Assume for the moment that you're American, liberal,
| white collar and live in one of the more affluent blue
| coastal states. Now imagine that 75% of your countrymen
| are rabbid red state Trump supporters, of low education,
| get most of their news and information from low quality
| Facebook shares, and are clearly misinformed about the
| world in many ways. Now imagine that the Federal
| government is much more powerful than the States, and
| that representative democratic policy will mostly reflect
| the will of Trump True-believers, the people fully
| supportive of the Capitol riots. How principled are you
| really about the rule of democracy?
|
| Now I'm not suggesting that this is a good analogy for
| the Chinese situation, nor that this is how highly
| education urban Chinese think about democracy (though I
| do know a few who do seem to think that way). What I am
| suggesting is that democracy is not always and everywhere
| the slam dunk win that some Western liberals appear to
| think it is.
|
| I write this as a second generation immigrant raised
| since elementary school with Western democratic values. I
| do believe that despite some flows it is the best system
| for most of Europe and the US. My parents fled the
| madness of the Mao CCP regime, and they've probably seen
| the worst side of the CCP. Yet they are ambivalent
| whether a US-style democracy today would be superior for
| the Chinese citizens to the current CCP.
| tablespoon wrote:
| > Assume for the moment that you're American, liberal,
| white collar and live in one of the more affluent blue
| coastal states. Now imagine that 75% of your countrymen
| are rabbid red state Trump supporters, of low
| education....How principled are you really about the rule
| of democracy?
|
| Though implicit in that fantasy is that, without
| democracy, the blue-state liberal gets to impose his will
| on the Trumpers. Something that can keep someone like
| that committed to democracy is (for instance) the thought
| that the alternative is could actually be a never-ending
| dictatorship of Mitch McConnell, beating humanity with
| its chin waddle forever.
|
| > Now I'm not suggesting that this is a good analogy for
| the Chinese situation, nor that this is how highly
| education urban Chinese think about democracy (though I
| do know a few who do seem to think that way). What I am
| suggesting is that democracy is not always and everywhere
| the slam dunk win that some Western liberals appear to
| think it is.
|
| Are you saying that educated urban Chinese are hesitant
| about democracy because they get to vicariously impose
| their will (or something close enough to it) on the
| rabble via the CCP?
| em500 wrote:
| > Though implicit in that fantasy is that, without
| democracy, the blue-state liberal gets to impose his will
| on the Trumpers. Something that can keep someone like
| that committed to democracy is (for instance) the thought
| that the alternative is could actually be a never-ending
| dictatorship of Mitch McConnell, beating humanity with
| its chin waddle forever.
|
| Right. I don't think it's a given that democracy is
| demonstrably superior to meritocracy or even aristocracy
| or enlightened despotism in delivering better outcomes
| for the majority of people (working definition,
| GDP/capita, or some honest measure of life satisfaction).
|
| > Are you saying that educated urban Chinese are hesitant
| about democracy because they get to vicariously impose
| their will (or something close enough to it) on the
| rabble via the CCP?
|
| I'm saying that I do know _some_ educated urban Chinese
| who seemed to believe that, at least the post-Mao CCP
| leadership probably did a better job than a
| counterfactual popular elected leadership. I have no idea
| how representative those few opinions are of the general
| Chinese urban population. I don 't know the country or
| politics well enough to agree or dispute such views
| either, but I can certainly see where they're coming
| from. Mobocracy by the uneducated masses was also one of
| the largest worries of the American Founding Fathers if I
| recall my history correctly. Bear in mind that the
| urbanization rate in China ("blue states" from the
| educated Chinese perspective) barely reached 30% until
| 2000 or so. And some Chinese friends summarized Mao-China
| as basically mob-rule by the peasants.
| bllguo wrote:
| > When educated Chinese people were better exposed to
| ideas about liberal democracy, they were very clear that
| they wanted it
|
| This falls flat for me. So the implication is that there
| are no educated Chinese today with exposure to liberal
| democracy? I think we take for granted the supposed
| superiority of a system that empirically has delivered
| many recent failures.
| tablespoon wrote:
| > This falls flat for me. So the implication is that
| there are no educated Chinese today with exposure to
| liberal democracy? I think we take for granted the
| supposed superiority of a system that empirically has
| delivered many recent failures.
|
| I'm not saying "no exposure," I'm saying they were
| "better exposed" in the past. You can even see changes
| like that happening in Hong Kong now, under the new
| crackdown on civil liberties. For instance, the
| government is now tinkering with the curriculum of a
| "Liberal Studies" course in Hong Kong to make it more
| "patriotic."
|
| > I think we take for granted the supposed superiority of
| a system that empirically has delivered many recent
| failures.
|
| Would you trade Donald Trump, Joe Biden, the Democrats,
| and Repubicans for Xi Jinping and the CCP (and everything
| that entails)?
| bllguo wrote:
| my experience is obviously anecdotal but interactions
| with Western-educated Chinese immigrants, many of whom
| left in the 80s and 90s, suggest that "democracy is the
| best" is not some universal wisdom that people will
| naturally converge to
|
| If it were solely between these two choices? I'm not
| exactly ecstatic about these options, but I would. The
| fact that someone like Trump could come to power here - a
| fact that we, amazingly, seem to be trying to sweep under
| the rug - says this system is a complete failure and is
| just waiting to be exploited further.
| fighterpilot wrote:
| Sure, liberal democracies have had many recent failures,
| but they're still the most prosperous societies on a per-
| capita basis by a gigantic margin. If an authoritarian or
| non-democratic country can achieve over $40,000 GDP per
| capita, then we can revisit.
| bllguo wrote:
| that's true. but none of this is happening in a vacuum.
| liberal democracies are also the ones trying to change or
| destroy non-democratic regimes by force. imo you can sum
| up everything evil China is accused of, and it would not
| come close to what we pulled in South America, the Middle
| East, and Asia
|
| I'm all for a fair comparison. And as someone who
| currently benefits from Western ideals of personal
| liberties, I'd be happy to see it proven that they are
| superior. But let's make it fair
| dirtyid wrote:
| If you go by PPP, top 5 per capita territories are
| Luxembourg, Singapore, Ireland, Qatar, Macau. That's 3/5
| non democracies. Rank 6-10 is Switzerland, Norawy, US,
| Brunei, HK. 5/10 non democracies.
|
| Many systems can become prosperous if relatively small
| and sufficiently aligned to US foreign policy to preserve
| the hegemony. Democracies that don't will get crushed /
| contained inspite of "democratic peace". The real
| disruption of PRC's rise is an alternate system that
| could create a prosperous or even moderately wealthy
| society, despite US supremency.
| dillondoyle wrote:
| +1. When you take what you're saying with the parent
| above you, Xi is also pulling all the state media strings
| to play up the less-corrupt benevolence thing - using it
| to consolidate power. Check out this recent good article
| about their extrajudicial 'repatriations' which has
| examples of the bragging in their government controlled
| media about it (kidnappings).
|
| It's both trying to show less corruption and
| simultaneously scaring everyone away from dissent. Gross
| but seems powerful.
|
| https://www.propublica.org/article/operation-fox-hunt-
| how-ch...
| jjaammee wrote:
| That's maybe true when young people in China first
| learned western democracy ideas. Nowadays I think most of
| educated Chinese believe democracy is not suitable for
| China. They didn't get the whole picture of western
| world, but who does nowadays. They see signs of culture
| revolution in western social movements and rejected those
| wholeheartedly.
| tablespoon wrote:
| > Nowadays I think most of educated Chinese believe
| democracy is not suitable for China.
|
| Isn't that exactly 1) what the Communist Party wants them
| to think, and 2) an idea that they can manipulate the
| information environment to promote?
| [deleted]
| bllguo wrote:
| I don't see how this is a productive point. "Democracy is
| best" is 1) what the US government wants you to think,
| and 2) an idea that they can manipulate the information
| environment to promote.
| JMTQp8lwXL wrote:
| Re-frame the question: if they could have western style
| liberal democracy without any bloodshed, would they? The
| answers you're seeing might be tainted with knowing the
| path to democracy would be painful, and all else equal,
| that pain is worse than the current power structure.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| There is without any bloodshed and without any bloodshed.
| The Soviet Union fell down with very little bloodshed,
| but around 7 million people died from the economic
| disruption, and the democracy that came from it was
| rapidly compromised both by local oligarchs and foreign
| powers in most of it.
|
| I don't think the Chinese would want a fall of the USSR
| scenario, however little the bloodshed is. Economic
| disruption can kill a lot of people and there is not even
| any guarantee the next system would stand on it's own.
| tablespoon wrote:
| > There is without any bloodshed and without any
| bloodshed. The Soviet Union fell down with very little
| bloodshed, but around 7 million people died from the
| economic disruption, and the democracy that came from it
| was rapidly compromised both by local oligarchs and
| foreign powers in most of it.
|
| But you're comparing apples and oranges.
|
| Russia was still a command economy when the Soviet Union
| disintegrated, and went straight to democracy _and_
| capitalism _at the same time_ with very little transition
| (IIRC, mainly because of the bad advice of Westerners who
| were too ideological and infatuated with markets).
|
| China has _already made_ the transition to capitalism, so
| I don 't think a political transition to liberal
| democracy there would entail the kind of economic
| disruption Russia experienced.
| caoilte wrote:
| Don't forget that western liberal democracies look pretty
| un-attractive at the moment. When the choice is between a
| raving loony geriatric dementia patient and Trump a lot
| of people think they'd be better off without.
| starfallg wrote:
| >My experience of people in China-- admittedly a long
| time ago-- was they are generally very patriotic or
| nationalistic, like Americans. They appreciate the CCP
| and what it has accomplished. They have a strong domestic
| arts industry making movies, books, games. Sure lots of
| people disagree with the party, but that doesn't that
| they want a western liberal democracy.
|
| Having been on the inside, it's not that they don't want
| a different system, it's that they see the real or
| perceived problems of our system as highlighted by their
| domestic media and generally from their point of view.
| This makes them substantially less enthusiastic than we
| think they would be.
|
| The only way to convince them is to show them that
| liberal democracy does indeed yield better results, with
| people feeling more secure and leading happier lives. In
| order to do that we need to ensure that our democratic
| processes lead to solidarity and not division. That's why
| the last 4 years have been so damaging to our system, the
| fabric of the system has been damaged by extreme
| partisanship, without considering that standing together
| with our neighbours is in many cases more important than
| being 'right'.
| ypzhang2 wrote:
| Anecdotally, western democracy was seen as a means to an
| end for many "common folk Chinese". The end is
| prosperity. Now that the prosperity gap has drastically
| closed (also there are more clear paths to prosperity),
| the desire has also dissipated. China has also seen a
| China-like society in Singapore achieve a very strong
| economic and social outcome with authoritarian
| government, so western style democracies aren't the only
| "role model" so to speak anymore
| hodgesrm wrote:
| I'm troubled that your comment was downvoted. It seems
| very reasonable. Thank you for posting.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| I think this position is very valuable. By far the best
| way for us to effect change in China politically, and
| every other major ideologically opposed nation, is to
| effect change at home, and be so sucessful that the
| superiority of our approach cannot be refuted.
|
| Bonus point that there is a lot less chance of war this
| way.
| tablespoon wrote:
| > I think this position is very valuable. By far the best
| way for us to effect change in China politically, and
| every other major ideologically opposed nation, is to
| effect change at home, and be so sucessful that the
| superiority of our approach cannot be refuted.
|
| I don't think so. Fixing domestic problems is a worthy
| goal, but it's wishful thinking to believe it will do
| anything to "effect change in China politically."
| sudosysgen wrote:
| Perhaps it won't, if things don't stop improving in China
| and we don't improve enough. But if that happens I don't
| see any way at all of changing things in China from our
| position.
| em500 wrote:
| Yup. People who get their news mostly from Western media
| might believe Chinese live in a repressive Orwellian
| hellscape, and conclude that if there is not widespread
| resentment against the CCP it must be because it's all
| suppressed. The truth is probably a lot more pedastrian:
| life in modern China is not bad at all, both in
| comparison to their own history and compared to other
| large countries in the world (NOT compared to exlusively
| rich countries). So a large part of the population is
| probably at least somewhat content with the current
| government.
|
| Life is probably far from pleasant if you're an Uyghur or
| a Falung Gong, but the overwhelming majority of the
| population is not too concerned with their lot. The CCP
| clearly does suppress dissent, but it can be targetted to
| minority opinions.
|
| The median Chinese citizen doesn't just see Western
| Europe and the USA and concludes that democracy leads to
| great results. (S)he can also see that it did not appear
| to bring great prosperity to India, Brazil or Russia.
| refenestrator wrote:
| There's an interesting phenomenon, specific to US tech,
| where there are a ton of Chinese who quietly have a
| problem with the recent anti-china rhetoric, but they're
| not going to put a target on their back over it, they
| stay quiet. How do you even engage with someone who
| doesn't speak a word of Chinese and is so confident that
| they know all about China?
|
| Meanwhile, the anti-china folks blithely go on about how
| much better freedom of expression is in America, and
| assume that silence means they are right.
| marderfarker2 wrote:
| I feel like a lot of frustration in the west are due to a
| lack of voice from within China, who can explain the
| context and give their point of view. Instead all you get
| are these disjointed news and headlines without any depth
| to it. People then make assumptions based on it.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| Well, yes and no. Go to reddit for example, you can find
| endless amounts of people explaining the Chinese
| perspective and getting voted down and accused of being
| wumaos, and you'll get banned for it in many places too.
| At some point I imagine it gets tiring.
| Steltek wrote:
| Isn't that the problem though? How do you know you're
| getting a genuine opinion when there's a public, broad,
| and well funded astroturf campaign? What even is a
| genuine opinion or free thought when the government
| employs such ruthless censorship?
| sudosysgen wrote:
| There is a 90% chance there are ruthless, public, broad
| and well funded astroturf campaign for and against most
| of your impactful opinions.
|
| You have to take it with detachement. I have enough
| Chinese friends living away to know that opinions often
| aren't that different living here vs in China. Censorship
| isn't that effective in the era of anyone easily getting
| a VPN.
| dillondoyle wrote:
| I strongly hold this skepticism of there being targeted
| CCP shills, including on HN. If true, that goes beyond
| censorship of their own citizens. How do you prove
| though. There has been some reporting about it, I
| remember one about their distributed mechanical turk-
| ified gamification of astro turfing basically.
|
| And I think that not knowing is part of the value for
| them. The Putin way of power through questioning reality,
| just throw out lots of lies, deflect, scapegoat,
| whataboutism. Class troll behavior has invaded the real
| world.
|
| I also see parallels in the US, at first from the extreme
| right 'media' just taking this bold faced bs approach and
| sadly it works.
| refenestrator wrote:
| If you're not open to other opinions, you will hear none,
| and that's entirely on you.
|
| In extremely broad strokes, China has gone from colonized
| and poor to powerful and rich. Is it so hard to believe
| that the average Zhao is pretty OK with things?
| tpm wrote:
| It's not a question of belief, it's more a question of
| who is speaking - him or the state propaganda? We had the
| same in communist Eastern Europe - you publicly said
| things that you thought were ok and assumed anyone with
| ears can be an agent of the regime. Privately you might
| have thought something very different, but why end up in
| prison and cause problems for your family?
| dirtyid wrote:
| China is not an Eastern European "old country" that got
| broken and remains broken because communism. IMO I find
| an interesting divergance in opinions immigrants of ex-
| soviet bloc countries and China, the former mostly has
| experience of decline and bad times to draw from, the
| latter largely supports and are of proud of modern PRC,
| many have aspirations to return / sea tutural back to
| live and work. You'll find many Chinese people
| genuininely defend PRC (and CCP) precisely because China
| isn't a failed communist Eastern European country.
| tpm wrote:
| The point is we have no way to distinguish what is
| "genuine" in this case. Compounding that problem is the
| current massive Chinese propaganda offensive, which makes
| it even harder to believe any positive opinions.
| Especially when at the same time we can see what is
| happening in HK, for example.
| [deleted]
| dirtyid wrote:
| I've wrote elsewhere in this thread that this alleged
| "Chinese propaganda offensive" especially on western
| social media is massively overblown. In terms of data, we
| have decades of western analysis of polling and
| sentiments in PRC suggesting people are genuinely
| supportive of central government, reflected in opinions
| of millions of Chinese diasphora populations who post on
| western media and/or interact regularly with people in
| the west. Even substantial percentage of HK itself is
| supportive of PRC, hence yellow/blue camps. So at minimum
| the issue is divisive with proponents and opponents,
| including in HK itself. Except the opponents are trying
| to create this narrative that proponent opinions can't be
| genuine because propaganda when that narrative itself is
| propaganda. All I can say is in my experience, folks in
| modern PRC voice dissent all the time, this isn't the 70s
| under Mao where one can be literally dispeared for
| private conversation. The stazis/red guards days are
| over. These days negative messages get deleted, positive
| messages get amplified. It's filtered. In the west the
| filtering goes the other way. Positive messages of get
| suppressed, negative ones get attention.
| dirtyid wrote:
| >a public, broad, and well funded astroturf campaign?
|
| Abroad where 50c doesn't operate? Reality is there aren't
| any substantial large scale astroturf campaigns from PRC
| according to recent foreign influence reports from
| western social media companies (see Twitter, Facebook).
| There's hand full of practice bit increasingly competent
| script kiddie tier campaigns with limited exposure on
| subject matters most westerners don't care about but CCP
| does (i.e. GuoWenGui). Even less so per studies before
| 2020 that only found anti-China social media manipulation
| that targeted PRC netizens who jumped the firewall. The
| real brainwashing is thinking Chinese opinion can't be
| "genuine opinion or free thought" because ruthless
| western manufactured consent created a misinformation
| enviroment that insinuates PRC opinions are totally
| controlled even abroad. There's plenty of genuine PRC
| supporters in the diasphora, and plenty of opponents as
| well. The former are usually the educated folks who
| immigrated in the last 10-30 years with duo perspective
| on Chinese/western models, largely normal people. The
| latter are dissidents, groups marginalized by CCP, who
| only has snapshot / out of date / time bubble memory of
| PRC. Incidentally they're the ones creating epochetimes,
| hanging with insurrectionist, and trying to convince
| western audiences that being pro PRC can't be a genuine
| opinion.
|
| Here's the 2021 RAND report on PRC disinformation from a
| week ago:
|
| * China has not carried out substantial disinformation
| attacks on other U.S. allies or partners (such as
| Singapore, the Philippines, or Japan).
|
| https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR4373z3.html
|
| PRC information campaigns are being tested, they may
| target west one day. But the idea that PRC is
| astroturfing the west is the product of western
| astroturfing itself.
| refenestrator wrote:
| Go one level deeper and ask why you're never exposed to
| that viewpoint.
|
| Washington Post and NYT will happily run Adrian Zenz all
| day long, even though he's a right wing religious nut and
| they're secular liberals, but you never see them print
| the majority viewpoint of actual Chinese people.
| forkLding wrote:
| This is still a similar viewpoint held by the young to
| adult generations of China although the idea of China as
| a democracy is definitely warming up but its more of at a
| certain date, China will transition to democracy instead
| of the current system being replaced now.
| tablespoon wrote:
| > Meanwhile, young, educated people almost exclusively
| consume the cultural products of the West, Korea, and
| Japan.
|
| What now? China has a pretty extensive film and television
| industry, and as far as I know it's very popular.
|
| > And they find the North Korean style propaganda
| embarrassing. The disconnect really cannot be understated.
|
| And in that case, the most logical reaction is political
| disengagement, which is completely A-OK in the CCP's book.
| blacksmith_tb wrote:
| You might think so, but slacking now seems to be
| considered to be dangerously rebellious[1] by the CCP.
|
| 1: https://qz.com/2019322/why-lying-flat-a-niche-chinese-
| millen...
| tablespoon wrote:
| That's different, the "slacking" of which you speak is a
| kind of dissent.
|
| What I mean by "political disengagement" keeping a
| distance from political issues and otherwise "saying
| withing the lines," so to speak.
| dirtyid wrote:
| > exclusively consume the cultural products of the West
|
| There's more penetration of western media and products in
| PRC, but vast majority of consumption is still domestic
| even among educated. And trends show the young are more
| nationalistic than ever, especially among those with more
| exposure to the west.
|
| >North Korean style propaganda embarrassing. The disconnect
| really cannot be understated.
|
| Yeah, folks are embarassed at the style of propaganda, ran
| by old cadres from for a bygone era. Not the idea of
| propaganda itself. They want better, modernized propaganda
| that effectively reinforces nationalism, especially abroad.
| mc32 wrote:
| I'm sure this is one aspect of it. They surely don't want
| "foreign decadence" to influence their youth --which is
| part of losing control over narrative.
|
| It's kind of typical socialist thinking that you can have
| forever revolutionary songs and chants, forever
| reconstruction and forever community activism (for the
| party of course). Obviously, that can work in tightly
| controlled environments such as North Korea, and it looks
| like they are taking some of that social control back so
| they can better dictate what they population should do (for
| its own good as they see it, obviously).
| [deleted]
| miohtama wrote:
| It is simple rule of authority system, not rule of law
| system. The only way to win is to give the party members
| enough shares or bribes so that they like you and see you as
| the member of the club. Chinese authorities are especially
| thin skinned and will see moves like this also as the win
| against any criticism.
| mahkeiro wrote:
| Seems that only applies to China weixin accounts. The rest of the
| world can still create an international wechat account.
| blakespot wrote:
| Ah, not the same as venerable WeeChat. #IRC
| partsKnown wrote:
| Anyone with WeChat installed, can you help me try to sign up.
| This is what it says when I try to:
|
| https://imgur.com/a/cuYsnpU
| xwolfi wrote:
| .
| paganel wrote:
| > retail investor trusting your savings to the success of
| modern Chinese companies.
|
| To be fair retail investors shouldn't do that with their
| savings anyway (I mean, savings meant for old age or for the
| children's education).
| xwolfi wrote:
| .
| eric-hu wrote:
| I'm not sure why your comments were flagged. They were not
| only reasonable, but pretty informative to me.
| secondaryacct wrote:
| I deleted the content and put a . because it was about my
| employer and critical of a regulator. I figured I might
| as well not.
|
| Probably flagged for that reason. It was maybe too
| informative for my taste lol Weirdly Im prevented to post
| with the same account.
| eric-hu wrote:
| Ahh understood, that makes sense. Thanks for explaining!
| partsKnown wrote:
| HN is getting to be that way.
|
| My guess is Dang has the flag set to go off after some #
| of "flags".
|
| An in flux of new uses who can't downvote might flag what
| they don't like.
|
| More new people combined with a flag trigger set too low
| comments and posts disappear quicker and more than ever.
| [deleted]
| xyzzy21 wrote:
| The Chinese government also forced a removal of WeChat from
| online stores in China.
|
| Consensus in some quarters is that a Maoist crackdown akin to the
| cultural revolution may be starting up.
|
| Other companies have been hammered such as all cram schools have
| been "told" they will not only not be allowed to issue stock
| (IPO) but possibly no longer allowed to be for-profit but must be
| non-profit now.
|
| https://www.newsdirectory3.com/china-bans-cram-school-busine...
|
| https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-07-23/china-is-...
| hamburgerwah wrote:
| There seems to be a lot of misunderstanding in this thread that
| there can be chinese companies that are somehow separate from the
| government. All chinese companies are defacto part of the
| government. The CEO of all chinese enterprises is Xi Jinping.
| president wrote:
| Citizens as well as the party must always come first.
| [deleted]
| MangoCoffee wrote:
| it remind me of this news from years ago:
|
| China's Millionaires Visit Communist Revolution Sanctuary Clad
| in Military Uniforms of the Era
|
| https://japan-forward.com/chinas-millionaires-visit-communis...
| websites2023 wrote:
| No idea why you're being downvoted. This is 100% correct, China
| requires party members to be on the boards of companies and Xi
| is the head of the party.
| president wrote:
| Not saying its true but this is the reason a lot of people
| suspect the same thing is happening in the US under the guise
| of diversity organizations that suddenly started popping up
| in most major corporations over the last few years.
| onethought wrote:
| Only some companies... logically assess what you are saying:
| for all business, government has board representation!? How
| would that scale? Where would the government get that kind is
| workforce?
| onethought wrote:
| But they aren't. Most companies have no direct influence from
| the government (outside of regulation). Just the big ones...
| which is pretty similar to the US.
| kaycebasques wrote:
| WeChat registration was a fascinating experience. You download
| the app and then someone who is already in the system has to
| verify you via QR code scan. That's how it was when I visited a
| couple years ago, at least.
| [deleted]
| partsKnown wrote:
| I'm trying now, can you help?
|
| https://imgur.com/a/cuYsnpU
| rwmj wrote:
| Or to be more precise, it works for a few days, then abruptly
| locks you out until a friend with a China phone number and bank
| account vouches for you.
| fortuna86 wrote:
| And forget getting the weChat payment functionality working
| with a foreign bank.
| xrikcus wrote:
| It works pretty reliable with discoverbank cards, but
| that's because they are unionpay compatible. It was a
| complete mess getting the app to the point where it would
| let me use it for payments at all, though.
| fortuna86 wrote:
| When I tried to troubleshoot getting a bank linked to the
| account, WeChat suspended the account for "suspicious
| behavior". That was that.
| radmuzom wrote:
| Not necessarily "China phone number". I live in Malaysia and
| WeChat is very popular here, even among Malays. One Malaysian
| friend vouched for my account.
| vmception wrote:
| Its different for every country combination and at
| different times depending on how Tencent/CCP feels
| vmception wrote:
| The best thing about San Francisco for me was being able to run
| around and find Mainland Chinese to register me!
|
| Even Hong Kongers couldn't register Americans at the time.
| websites2023 wrote:
| How many native Chinese don't have WeChat already? WeChat has
| 1.2B users. China has 1.4B people. I suspect the rest are too old
| or too young. Basically, it's impossible to operate in a city
| without it.
| infofarmer wrote:
| 50 thousand people are born in China every day.
|
| It's not like the world is static.
| websites2023 wrote:
| Well, luckily babies are are too young to use WeChat and
| won't be old enough by early August for this to impact them.
| rahimnathwani wrote:
| What about the 50k people/day being both 13 years ago? Will
| they register earlier than they would have done, seeing
| August as a deadline?
| ilamont wrote:
| Under the CCP, the "rights" pendulum swings wildly for society
| and the economy. Some policies and edicts seem well thought out,
| others seem impulsive and extreme with little regard to long-term
| consequences or the impact on China's people.
|
| 100 flowers/Great Leap Forward. Cultural Revolution/Deng reforms.
| Tiananmen/hypernationalism.
|
| Tech has enjoyed a relatively open hand for two decades. Now the
| fist is closed and comes smashing down. Justification for
| clampdowns, crackdowns and purges are really about CCP leaders
| using all tools at their disposal to maintain a hold on power.
| onethought wrote:
| You quote policies from at least 30 years ago?
|
| So by comparison we are taking the highly successful policies
| of Reagan and Nixon... perhaps with the Japanese internment
| camps and dropping nuclear weapons thrown in? (For a similar
| time period in the US)
| m3kw9 wrote:
| Looks like tech will inevitably one day circumvent all the
| barriers China has set up. It seem there is a panic with in the
| govt as they notice the trend. Delays the inevitable, but for how
| long?
| ren_engineer wrote:
| based on trends of Western companies bending over backwards to
| fulfil China's whims, I'd say the odds are more likely this
| gets exported around the world
| dalbasal wrote:
| Hello 2003.
|
| I remember when the "great firewall" seemed like a joke, as did
| digital copyright compliance, online censorship or basically
| any means of controlling the internet. Information wanted to be
| free, and neither man nor king could stand in its way.
|
| Maybe that is true, and the last 15 years have been an
| aberration. But... that would mean a reversal of a trend, not a
| continuation of the current one. To me it seems likely (careful
| with inevitabilities) that the internet will increasingly
| become a way of controlling people.
| grishka wrote:
| The problem is excessive centralization. The internet used to
| be millions of servers owned by independent people and
| organizations. That was, for all intents and purposes,
| uncontrollable. Now much of the internet is comprised of
| giant platforms that are a whole lot easier to coerce to
| comply with even most nonsensical regulations.
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